Baking & Snack - June 2018 - 86

DOUGH HANDLING
doughs that have a tendency to change
with time. "Proteins in dough undergo change as it rests, which makes
it more difficult to form," said Sam
Pallotini, director, cookie, cracker
and pet food sales, Reading Bakery
Systems. "This change can occur
randomly for different products depending on temperature, hydration
and protein levels." He suggested that
a continuous mixing system can limit
the need for additional auxiliary equipment to transport dough and feed the forming
equipment.
Moving right along
Removable roll-on-roll-off
design helps bar producers
remove the head, including
the hopper, feed rollers,
pump hosue and die plate,
for fast cleaning.
Franz Haas Machinery of America
these changes is critical," said Cesar Zelaya, bakery
sales and technology manager, Handtmann, Inc.
This also can present some challenges in equipment like chunkers, pumps or extruders. "When processing dough with hard and dried inclusions such as
nuts and seeds, bakers need to look for heavy-duty
versions of pumps and chunkers," Mr. Zelaya said. He
noted the company's Vane Cell pump is designed to
minimize breakage of inclusions like these.
Viscous ingredients such as molasses, honey and
corn syrup make for dry, stiff dough. The lack of water content makes the dough more difficult to handle,
which can affect the process and necessary equipment.
Nuts - specifically peanuts and
almonds - are big growth drivers for
bars, and innovation with ingredients
like cashews is also gaining ground.
Bar inclusions can also be fragile, so it's important
to have a transfer system that can handle a variety of
textures. "Mixed materials can be soft, fragile, flakey or
dense, so you need to look after all aspects and components of the mixture," said Norman Schmidt, president,
Food Machinery Engineering (FME), which partners
with Reiser for dough handling equipment.
One option for consistency in dough is the use
of continuous mixing, especially for high-protein
86 Baking & Snack June 2018 / www.bakingandsnack.com
All the inclusions - and the honey, gums and syrups
that hold them together - have bar dough slogging
slowly down the line, and that creates all new obstacles compared with handling more traditional bread
and roll dough.
Oftentimes, the challenge starts the minute the
dough leaves the mixer. "Good handling of sticky
dough starts here," said Damian Morabito, president
and CEO, Topos Mondial Corp. The company recently built a mixer with a 160-degree overtilt so that the
bowl can face all the way to the floor. "The product
can discharge straight down onto a belt, trough or
some sort of feeder, and it won't get hung up in the
mixer," he said.
But the mixer isn't the only thing the dough is going to stick to. Consider all the surfaces that are moving the product down the line. "The next challenge is
that when it goes into a hopper or a chunker, it wants
to stick to the walls, the chunking blades, even the
belts," Mr. Morabito explained.
One way to keep from leaving so much product on
the equipment is with the finishing on the food contact surfaces. For instance, Topos will often use a swirl
finish on stainless steel hoppers to aid in release. "The
swirls you see on machinery may look decorative, but
it actually aids in the dough release because it minimizes the tension between the dough and the metal
surface," Mr. Morabito said. "If you think of it microscopically, it's raising the metal edges up, and there's
less surface for the dough or mixture to stick to."
That sticky consistency might seem impossible
to release, but advances in coatings are making a
big difference. "We've had success with doughs that
were so sticky we never thought it would chunk," Mr.
Morabito recalled. "We've done FAT tests with certain sticky material and found that a traditional triad
blade chunker, with three blades on the shaft, has